Randy's Palermo

Randy gave us a tour in the old town: the fountain of Cavallo Marino off of Via Butera with the Porta Felice in the background. I have seen other photos on line, not nearly as impressive as my snapshot!

Johann Wolfgang Goethe stayed at the Palazzo Butera in 1787. Faust, perhaps his best-known work, was completed only shortly before his death in 1832. Goethe travelled through much of Italy, spending March, April and May 1787 in Sicily, and his memoir was published (in German) in 1817 as Italian Journey.

Goethe described the statue in the Piazza Pretoria in his travel log

Recently restored, the centrally-located Pretoria Fountain, next to Palermo's municipal building (city hall), is a point of focus in a city where artistic monuments are not lacking. Ironically, the Pretoria Fountain is not, strictly speaking, Palermitan or even Sicilian. Most of its major pieces were created for a Tuscan villa. Only when it was decided to bring the unique work to Palermo where certain figures traditionally associated with Sicily (such as the goddess Ceres) added to "complete" it.

The work was essentially completed between 1552 and 1555 by the Florentine sculptor Francesco Camilliani, assisted by Michelangelo Naccherino and, of course, several apprentices (a common practice). It was intended for the garden of Luigi de Toledo, brother-in-law of Cosimo de Medici and son of a viceroy of Naples. It seems that Luigi could not afford the fountain, or at least could't afford to maintain it, so he sold it to the Palermo Senate in 1573. Over the next few years Camilliani's son, Camillo, set it up in Palermo, adding some original localized details such as the occasional Sicilian goddess, and creating the enduring legend that its four lower pools represented the four rivers (actually streams) of Palermo --the Papireto, Maredolce, Oreto and Gabriele.

See more picutres: http://palermo.for91days.com/2011/11/26/the-florentine-fountain-of-piazza-pretoria/

This is the train station. We stayed at Momo's B&B just a few blocks away on Abraham Lincoln Boulevard. 

Right down the street from our apartment was the Botanical Gardens. They were having a huge plant sale when we were there.

The outdoor market is also just a 10-minute walk from Momo's. It was not terribly crowded but at the end of the day, a local had to get his car through the street.